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Higher Education Webinars

Academic Minute

Inside Higher Ed is pleased to bring you The Academic Minute. The brainchild of Albany's WAMC and its president, Alan Chartock, The Academic Minute features professors from top institutions around the country, delving into topics from the serious to the light-hearted, keeping listeners abreast of what's new and exciting in the academy with topics ranging from updates on groundbreaking scientific research to an explanation of how the board game Monopoly can help explain the economic recession.

The Academic Minute features a different professor every day, drawing experts from institutions within WAMC's listening area and across the country. Each segment is introduced by Lynn Pasquerella, president of Mount Holyoke College. Pasquerella is also a professor of philosophy at Mount Holyoke, specializing in medical and legal ethics.

Are you a professor who would like to record an Academic Minute? Let us know about your latest research at academicminute@wamc.org

The Theme: The Academic Minute opens with a selection by WAMC contributor and renowned cellist Yehuda Hanani, who appears on Classical Music According to Yehuda during The Roundtable. The piece is Bach's Suite No. 2 in D Minor.

PROGRAMS

When one thinks of Vikings, lavish dinner parties are probably not the first thing that come to mind. But in today's Academic Minute, Baylor University's Davide Zori tells us that vikings were really into parties.

Human sexuality seems to be growing increasingly complex as the days go by. In today's Academic Minute, Cornell University's Ritch C. Savin-Williams offers a new perspective on the topic. Savin-Williams is a developmental psychology professor of human development and director of Cornell's Sex & Gender Lab.

Appraising the work of an educator is a highly nuanced process. In today's Academic Minute, the University of Missouri's Cory Koedel describes his work to improve the overall fairness of teaching evaluations. Koedel is an associate professor of economics and public policy at Missouri's Columbia campus. A transcript of this podcast can be found here.

Archive

In today’s Academic Minute, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Francine Berman discusses our growing need to store massive amounts of digital data and the problems we face in keeping our data accessible as storage formats change. Berman is vice president for research and professor of computer science at RPI. Find out more about her here.

n today’s Academic Minute, Cornell University's John Fitzpatrick discusses what we can learn about climate change by observing Snowy Owls. Fitzpatrick is executive director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y. Find out more about him here.

In today’s Academic Minute, the University of Texas at Austin's Timothy Rowe examines how the sense of smell contributed to the development of larger brains in early mammals and how modern technology is making such determinations possible. Rowe is a professor in the Department of Geological Sciences in UT-Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences and director of the Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory of the Texas Memorial Museum. Find out more about him here.

In today’s Academic Minute, Purchase College's Karen Baird discusses the modifications that have made health care more inclusive of needs unique to women. Baird is an associate professor of political science in the School of Natural and Social Sciences at Purchase, part of the State University of New York. She is author of 2009's Beyond Reproduction: Women’s Health, Activism, and Public Policy. Find out more about her here.

In today’s Academic Minute, Vanderbilt University's Daniel Sharfstein examines the long history of racial assimilation in the United States and why racial categories prove ambiguous at best. Sharfstein is an assistant professor at Vanderbilt's law school and was the inaugural recipient of the Raoul Berger Visiting Fellowship in Legal History at Harvard Law School. Find out more about him here.